Liquid's idea for Jason's abilities was to make them all distinct. Instead of concentrating on something like a percentage chance to hit bonus or something to that effect, the new skills will have dramatic effects on how Jason behaves. Or at least so says Liquid, and the developers cited an example where by enhancing Jason's offensive power you can more easily swat aside enemy shields, opening them up to attack.

In addition to Jason's abilities, he'll also be able to upgrade his weapons and armor. Instead of buying better versions from NPC vendors, the items Jason gets are tied into the story. In fact, you never interact with vendors at all, for items or anything. Clearly, Liquid is trying to streamline quite a bit of the RPG side of things, as there isn't even a currency system.

Jason eventually winds up in a dungeon and forced into a battle arena, an event for which he gets a fancy new suit of armor for. Here you meet up with a fellow prisoner named Pytheus, who accompanies you out onto the field of battle. Before the fight you'll be able to pick an AI attitude, telling Pytheus to either go all out or hang back and defend your flank.

In the arena.

Out in the arena, we got a chance to see the battle system in action. Instead of light and strong attacks, Jason can perform wound and execute maneuvers. Connecting with an execution will smash apart your enemy in spectacular fashion, such as launching them far into the air, impaling them, or forcing upon some other, more grisly fate. To accompany the moves the game often slows down to let you see precisely where you're hitting an enemy, a mechanic that seems to be more for style than substance.

Jason can switch weapons on the fly, and Liquid pointed out that spear, sword, and mace stances are all equally viable. In other words, he doesn't have a sort of primary weapon along with a bunch of secondary, less effective armaments. The shield mechanic is somewhat interesting, as Jason actually will actually move his shield to directly block an attack as well as use it offensively. The same goes for opponents. If you hit a shield, you'll damage the shield. If you hit an enemy, the enemy takes damage. It's not a system where if someone has a shield they're automatically better protected, as you can maneuver around his defenses to smash at his body.

If enemies or Jason get wounded in a fight, they'll chance their behavior to mimic being hurt, and consequently have wider attack arcs and generally fight more ineffectively. You'll need to pay attention to this as Jason doesn't actually have a health bar. Instead, he just regenerates if he goes a little while without being hit. Special abilities can be activated in battle too, such as a boosting attack, bolstering your spear's power (which can be thrown or used at close range), or creating a sort of swirling vortex in the battlefield that enemies can be tossed into for an instant-kill. Depending on what happens in battle, like if Pytheus lives or dies, the rest of the game world will change accordingly. For instance, should Pytheus die in the area, a new quest line opens up centering on his wife's wish to kill herself.

One of Jason's special powers.

The end of the demo finished with a battle against Achilles, and this fight seemed much more challenging than those against the grunt arena fighters. In the game, Achilles' invulnerability is represented by his ability to swiftly block and counter any attack thrown his way, so you'll need to be extra careful in how you try and maneuver around his defense lest he plunge a spear through your face.

Overall it's looking pretty impressive so far, with some solid sound effects and rousing music accompanying battles. The game, built on the Unreal Engine 3, looks pretty sharp as well, and seemed to run smoothly to boot. It seems like an action-RPG that's heavy on action, and we're curious to see how all the side-quests and more open-ended island roaming works. The game is set to ship on PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC toward the end of this year.